Evaluation of Intersection Safety Camera Program in Edmonton, Canada

Abstract

Enforcing traffic signal compliance in urban areas can be a difficult task, as the process is often limited by police resources and by traditional enforcement methods. Therefore, conventional traffic enforcement should be supplemented with advanced technologies, such as intersection safety cameras. Intersection safety cameras, often referred to as red light cameras (RLCs), are being used increasingly to help communities enforce against deliberate red light running. Since the 1970s, Europe, Australia, and North America have been using photo enforcement technology to improve safety at intersections. The City of Edmonton, Canada, has used automated photo enforcement as part of the overall traffic enforcement activity. The Intersection Safety Camera Program started as a pilot project in 1998, which quickly expanded into a comprehensive program for the entire city. Because a significant period had elapsed since the inception of the program, the Edmonton Police Commission wanted a study to determine the overall safety effect of the photo enforcement program. This paper describes the evaluation of Edmonton's Intersection Safety Camera (ISC) program. The paper describes the methodology used in the evaluation, the data collection–compilation effort required for the evaluation, and, finally, the results of the program measured in relation to reducing the number of collisions at the intersections that were treated with photo enforcement cameras. Also included is a summary of the literature associated with the deployment of RLCs.